Sex Tape Scandal
The Sex Tape Scandal was a sanctioned storyline from the arly days of the IFW. In 1996, just as the federation was getting started it was decided that a major and controversial storylinbe would be useful in getting the attention of fans. The actual storyline was pulled at the last minute, however. History Sanctioning The Sex Tape storyline was sanctioned in the spring of 1996, and was even storyboarded. It got to the stage where segment and story-line filming was set to be started. However, about a week before these segments were due to be shot, the federation pulled the idea feeling that although controversial, which is what they wanted, it was the wrong kind of non-family controversy to get the federation noticed. Communication Breakdown and Segment Taping Despite being pulled a week earlier, a combination of a failure to communicate and professional jealousy created a bigger controversy than the actual storyline would have caused. Aguri Nagasawa had recently joined the IFW for nefarious reasons, and despite knowing the tapings had been pulled, decided to make the actual sex tape anyway. Luckily for Nagasawa the news of the tape being pulled had not actually reached some of the crew, so Nagasawa was able to get the tape filmed by official IFW crew. Nagasawa hired a prostititute and brought in a protoge, Max Powers, to play the parts. The storyline was the first idea for getting Patrick Lewis and Travis Doomsday into a major feud, so Powers played Doomsday in the tape, and the prostitute played Cherry Wonderful who was by now married to Lewis. Broadcast At the end of Friday Fright Night, after a match between Doomsday and Lewis, Nagasawa showed the sex tape, live on air, which was played long enough to get the idea behind it. The show that night was cut short, and it took several hours to persuade the audience to go home, as many had either been taken in by the tape and wanted answers, or realised there was an error, and also wanted answers. Aftermath In the immediate aftermath of the broadcast, Lewis and Doomsday almost came to actual blows in the locker room area - they were separated by Lawrence Buffy, and Wonderful required some serious consoling, by Jayne Calypso Death, long time friend and wife of Doomsday. The next day, an investigation was launched and a plan put into place to explain the tape. Within a week of the broadcast, Nagasawa had been fired, and it also emerged that Tom Edwards, the Creative Director at the time had known about the tape. He too, was subsequently fired. The IFW then destroyed all copies of the sex tapes, however, the actual original was not destroyed, and it's ownership and whereabouts were not established for several years. Most of the crew who filmed the tape were also dismissed. Max Powers escaped any sort of ramifications as he was not known to be impersonating Doomsday in the tape, and he also was not signed to the IFW at the time. It would later emerge that Powers' subsequent friendship with Doomsday was formed more out of guilt for the incident rather than any other motivation. The Scandal Resurfaces